Russia’s hockey squad left the ice before listening to the anthem of World Championship final winners, Canada. But it wasn’t a walkout in protest, just an organizational blunder, Russian sports officials and players said.

Russia suffered a painful 6-1 loss to Canada in the deciding
match of the IIHF Hockey World Championship in the Czech capital
of Prague on Sunday night.

After the game, the Russian players received their silver medals
and most of the team left for the locker room before the national
anthem of newly-crowned champions Canada was played.

Only a handful of Russian team’s members remained on the O2 Arena
ice, which included the country’s top stars, Alex Ovechkin and
Evgeny Malkin.

The head of hockey’s governing body, IIHF, Rene Fasel, called
Russia’s behavior “unacceptable” and promised to sanction the
country’s hockey federation.

“It was disrespectful towards the opposing team. I was very
disappointed and upset by this fact. This goes against our rules
of fair play… I do not accept such behavior. I have great respect
for Russia and Russian hockey, and it was very difficult to
observe such behavior,” Fasel told the R-Sport news agency.

The IIHF president said his organization will discuss possible
sanctions against Russia on Tuesday and that he’ll
“personally see to them being applied.”

Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, stressed that what
happened in Prague wasn’t done on purpose by the country’s hockey
team, but didn’t object to possible sanctions from the IIHF.

"If they view it as a lack of respect ... So it goes, if
they’ll punish us – it’ll be the right thing. If there is such a
protocol and the participants are aware of it then everybody must
follow it,” Mutko said.

“There are sporting rules, players must treat each other with
respect, but I don’t think that it was a walk out in
protest,” he added.

The minister’s words were echoed by Russian Hockey Federation
president and legendary goalkeeper, Vladislav Tretyak, who
stressed the country’s players have great respect for their
Canadian colleagues.

“Our team congratulated the Canadians with victory and shook
hands with them. There’s no conflict. Team Russia respects the
Canadian team, which played well game and deservedly won,”
he said.

“Usually, the competition organizers supervise such
ceremonies, but this time it turned out that the gates leading to
the locker rooms ware opened immediately after the match. There
was some kind of confusion, an organizational blunder,”
Tretyak told Tass news agency.

The Russian players also said that them leaving the ice too early
shouldn’t be treated as “some kind of a gesture.”

“There was no disrespect towards the rivals. We just looked
at each other, didn’t understand what to do and went to the
locker room,” Egor Yakovlev, Russia’s defender, said.

Forward Nikolay Kulemin stressed that what happened at the O2
Arena was “just a misunderstanding, nothing more.”

“The guys just didn’t know that they have to remain on the
ice and wait till the end. Everybody was upset and thought that
it was already over,” he said.

It’s worth noting that the Russian players had little experience
of losing world championship finals before Sunday’s game. They
have played for the hockey crown on five occasions since 2008 and
failed to win just once.

There’s no direct instruction in the IIHF regulations for the
losing team to listen to the anthem of the winners, RIA Novosti
reported after looking over the rules.

The participants of the hockey match are only obliged to take
their helmets off and shake hands with the opposing squad members
and the referees, which was done by the Russian team on Sunday.